Page 47 of Crocodile Tears
Frankie leaned in. “What was Finch like as a kid?”
“I’ll pay you fifty bucks not to answer that,” Finch cut in.
I grinned. “She was a hellion just as she is now. Sarcastic. Funny. Didn’t give a crap what other people thought but cared a whole hell of a lot about her animals.”
Frankie leaned into Finch and kissed her shoulder. “Yep, that sounds about right.”
“And these two.” I pointed my fork between the twins before spearing a cube of cantaloupe. “Were only seven years old the last time I saw them, but they were already absolutely feral.”
Frankie’s smile stretched as Finch wrapped an arm around her. “So nothing’s changed there either.”
“Nothing except their facial hair,” I joked.
I pointed to Wren in the corner. “And she had just learned how to make daisy chains and spent her days carrying around a crayon box like a briefcase.”
“I forgot about your crayon box thing!” Finch crooned. She wandered over to the recliner to ruffle Wren’s hair. With a practiced swat, Wren smacked her sister’s hand away and kept her eyes focused on her project.
“I remember little flashes of you,” Heron said, considering me. “You and Dove making up secret code words at dinner.You and Dove running around the café, reading books about dragons. You and Dove rock-pooling at the beach. The two of you were always trying to ditch us.”
“That’s because you were insufferable,” I retorted with a sweet, mocking smile.
“Fair.”
“But just because you were a family friend when we were kids, doesn’t mean we will go any less hard on you than Logan or Hannah or Frankie, got it?”
I blinked at them, wondering why they would put me in the same category as their siblings’ partners. There was definitely some magic energy between Dove and me—well, at least,Ifelt there was—but I didn’t know if I’d ever have the guts to confess my feelings outright to her, let alone whether she would ever reciprocate them. But her siblings saw it too, saw that there was a spark between us, and even if Dove and I never acknowledged it, I was grateful to know I wasn’t the only one who thought it was there.
This was a lot more than my tired morning brain could convey, though, so instead I asked, “You’re going to be hard on me?”
Heron pointed a spatula at me, making a serious face despite their chosen implement. “Don’t break our sister’s heart,” they said. “Or we will feed you to the crocodiles.”
“I thought the crocodiles get better quality meat than me?”
Finch snorted. “I see Dove has already told you that family joke,” she said. “Well, gang, we’re going to have to finally come up with some new ones.”
“Finally.” Frankie let out a mocking laugh.
“And don’t think about trying to sneak off to bang in the zoo, okay?” Crane said, and Finch smacked him again. “We know all the places. The restaurant, the lookouts, the back alley, the Jeep.”
“The Jeep?” I scoffed. “The others make sense, but the Jeep is right out in the open between the lion and tiger enclosures.”
“Yeah, Hawk and Hannah havedefinitelybanged in that Jeep,” Crane continued.
Finch weighed her head side to side as if debating the truth in that statement. “I’d put money on it.”
“How much?” Heron asked, intrigued.
“You all need to stop betting on your siblings’ relationships,” Frankie scolded them.
“We live on a tiny island,” Crane offered. “There is very little entertainment here in the off-season. Hence the intimidating of the movie star.”
“When does the intimidating part begin?” I joked as I took another long sip of coffee.
“Listen, pretty boy,” Crane said, and the rest of us laughed. “If you hurt Dove, we will?—”
“What?” I cut in. “Put a tarantula in my bed? Put meal worms in my pockets? Hide crickets in my food? You’ve done all of those things to me before.”
“Okay, no more childhood friends are allowed into the family,” Heron decreed, waving their arms into an X.
